Richard joins Jay Michaels and guest host Tamara Cherry of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today we talk about Halloween icon Vincent Price’s favourite cocktails, the eerie “Last Night in Soho” and Wes Anderson’s latest, “The French Dispatch.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“Last Night in Soho,” the new film from director Edgar Wright, now playing in theatres, is a love letter to London’s Swingin’ Sixties by way of Italian Giallo. Surreal and vibrant, it is uneven and more than a little bit silly, but enjoyable for those with a taste for both Petula Clarke and murder.
When we first meet Cornish teenager Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) she’s dressed head-to-toe in a throwback newspaper print dress of her own design, dancing to Peter and Gordon’s 1964 hit, “A World Without Love.” Several dramatic dance moves later, she makes her way down to her grandmother’s (Rita Tushingham) main floor and a letter announcing she’s been accepted to fashion school in London.
“London is not what you think it is,” granny warns. “It can be a lot.”
Eloise doesn’t heed the warning. She is obsessed with London, specifically the magical period when Julie Christie wore Mary Quant and Carnaby Street was the fashion capital of the world. “If I could live anywhere, I’d live in Soho in the sixties,” Eloise gushes. “It must have felt like the center of the universe.”
Unfortunately, London, as exciting as it is, doesn’t greet Eloise with open arms. At school her mean girl roommate makes life miserable to the point where Ellie moves out, renting a rundown bedsit in Soho from eccentric landlady Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg).
Falling asleep on her first night in the new digs, she is transported back to the glamorous world of the 1960s. “Thunderball” is at the movies, Cilla Black sings at Soho’s Cafe De Paris and the streets of are alive with people like Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wannabe singer with a great wardrobe and aspirations to stardom. Over time Eloise finds herself drawn into Sandie’s world, the world she had long dreamed about, but are these visions dreams, nightmares or dangerous manifestations of the ghosts that haunt every corner of old London town?
“Last Night in Soho” begins with verve, painting a picture of a time and place that is irresistible. A mosaic of music, fashion and evocative set decoration, the first hour brings inventive world building and stunning imagery. Wright pulls out all the stops, making visual connections between his film and the movies of the era he’s portraying and even including sixties British icons Rigg, Tushingham and Stamp in the cast.
A dance sequence that swaps out Eloise for Sandie at every twirl is exuberant, breathtaking in its choreography and an early indication that the two characters will be intertwined for the remainder of the story.
The first half is glorious fun but takes a very dark turn.
As Eloise becomes immersed in Sandie’s life, she peers beneath Soho’s dazzling veneer to see the dark underbelly of London’s nightlife. Wright changes tone, introducing horror and psychological elements. The two halves fit together like puzzle pieces, dovetailing into one another naturally despite the shift in ambience.
“Last Night in Soho” could use more character development in its lead characters, but the chemistry between McKenzie and Taylor-Joy as two sides of the same coin, is electric. Wright uses those characters to explore the misogyny that colors Sandie’s life, wringing horror out of the treatment she receives at the hands of her manager/pimp Jack (Matt Smith). The scares, which out me in the mind of Hammer Horror and “Repulsion,” are eye catching and effective, leading up to a surprising finale.
“Last Night in Soho” is more than the sum of its influences. They abound, but filtered through Wright’s sensibility become an enjoyable ride through a part of town and time that no longer exists.
Reminders of real life were all around us at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. From the digital screenings we watched at home to half empty, socially distanced screenings at venues like The Princess of Wales Theatre. But when my mind wanders back to September 2021, I won’t be thinking of having to show my proof of vaccination or the social distancing in theatres.
What will linger?
The images of Anya Taylor-Joy in “Last Night in Soho,” crooning an a cappella version of the Swingin’ Sixties anthem “Downtown,” and “Dune’s” Stellan Skarsgård doing his best impression of Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now,” come to mind immediately.
Those moments and others like them are the reason the movies exist. They transcend the vagaries of real life, transporting us away from a place where masks, vaccine passports are the reality.
And boy, did we need that this year.
Here a look back at some of the moments that made memories at this year’s TIFF:
“Night Raiders,” a drama from Cree-Métis filmmaker Danis Goulet, draws on the historical horrors of the Sixties Scoop and Residential Schools to create an unforgettable, dystopian scenario set in the new future. It effectively paints a somber portrait of totalitarian future, packed with foreboding and danger. The story is fictional but resonates with echoes of the ugly truths of colonization and forced assimilation. Goulet allows the viewer to make the comparisons between the real-life atrocities and the fictional elements of the story. There are no pages of exposition, just evocative images. Show me don’t tell me. The basis in truth of the underlying themes brings the story a weight often missing in the dystopian genre.
I asked Danis Goulet about having many of her characters in Night Raiders speak Cree: “It is everything to me,” she said. “My dad is a Cree language speaker. He grew up speaking Cree. He learned to speak English in school. His parents were Cree speakers. And coming down to my generation, I’m no longer a Cree speaker and there are entire universes, philosophies and poetry and beauty contained in the language. When we think of where our heritage lies, maybe some people think of museums. For me I think it is in the language. I think that richness doesn’t just offer Indigenous people something. I think if others looked closer at what the language tells us about the history of this land, they would be incredibly amazed. My dad has looked at references in the language that talk about the movement of the glaciers, so, foe me to have the Cree language on screen is everything. I’m in my own process. I go to Cree language camp to try and learn back the language and the language gives back in a way that is so healing and incredible. It is one of the greatest gifts in my life. So, the opportunity to put my dad’s first language on the screen, and the language of the Northern Communities where I come from, and my language that I lost, is the best. It’s incredible.”
From Twitter: @RichardCrouse Was just sent this: “Wanted to check and see if you’d be able to either send proof of vaccine OR a negative covid test prior to your interviews with the talent.” I sent my proof in, but added, “Will the talent be providing me with proof of vaccination?” #TIFF21 #fairquestion 4:48 PM · Sep 9, 2021· 8 Retweets 3 Quote Tweets 206 Likes
There is no mention of COVID-19 in the Jake Gyllenhaal thriller “The Guilty.” But make no mistake, this is a pandemic movie, A remake of 2018 Danish film “Den skyldige,” it is essentially a one hander, shot on a just a handful of set with strict safety protocols in place. Gyllenhaal, as 911 operator Joe Baylor, may be socially distanced from his castmates, but his performance is anything but distant. Played out in real time, “The Guilty” builds tension as Baylor races against a ticking clock to bring the situation to a safe resolution for Emily. Director Antoine Fuqua amps up the sense of urgency, keeping his camera focused on Gyllenhaal’s feverish performance. The close-ups create a sense of claustrophobia, visually telegraphing Baylor’s feeling of helplessness and his crumbling mental state.
The sound of an audience laughing, applauding, crying, or whatever. Just being an audience. The big venues were socially distanced, and often looked empty to the eye, but when the lights went down and folks reacted to the opening speeches or the films, it didn’t matter. Roy Thomson Hall, with its 2600-person capacity, may have only had 1000 or so people in the seats, but for ninety minutes or two hours they formed a community, kindred souls brought together after a long break, and it was uplifting to hear their reactions.
“Flee” is a rarity, an animated documentary. A mix of personal and modern world history, it is a heartfelt look at the true, hidden story of the harrowing life journey of a gay refugee from Afghanistan. Except for a few minutes here and there of archival news footage, “Flee” uses animation to tell the story but this ain’t the “Looney Tunes.” Rasmussen used the animation to protect Amin’s identity, but like other serious-minded animated films like “Persepolis” and “Waltz with Bashir,” the impressionistic presentation enhances the telling of the tale. The styles of Rasmussen’s animation change to reflect and effectively bring the various stages of Amin’s journey to vivid life. It is suspenseful, heartbreaking and often poetic.
I asked “The Survivor” star Vicky Krieps about working opposite Ben Foster: “The first day I came [on set] I was very intimidated,” she said. “I wouldn’t say scared, but it felt like a wall to me. It began like this. There was no small talk. There was no, ‘How are you?’ He was already in character and it was very clear. I thought, ‘OK, I have to play his wife.’ And then, something really interesting happened. I like having a challenge and this felt like a challenge. So, I needed to find a way [to relate to him] because I knew I was going to be his wife. How do I do that? Imagine it as a wall, but then in the wall there are eyes. I used those eyes and I felt like I could open a window, and inside of those eyes was a horizon where I could go. I liked to say to Ben, ‘And then we would dance.’ Sometimes I wrote to him and said, ‘It was nice dancing today.’”
“Last Night in Soho,” from director Edgar Wright, is a love letter to London’s Swingin’ Sixties by way of Italian Giallo. Surreal and vibrant, and more than a little bit silly, its enjoyable for those with a taste for both Petula Clarke and murder. It begins with verve, painting a picture of a time and place that is irresistible. A mosaic of music, fashion and evocative set decoration, the first hour brings inventive world building and stunning imagery. Wright pulls out all the stops, making visual connections between his film and the movies of the era he’s portraying and even including sixties British icons Rigg, Tushingham and Stamp in the cast.
I asked “Dune” star Rebecca Ferguson why she said reading Frank Herbert’s novel was like doing a crossword puzzle: “Sometimes I wonder what comes out of my mouth,” she said. “My mother and many of my friends sit and do crosswords, but I have never been in that world. There is a way of thinking around it. It’s logical, mathematical. You need to be able to see rhythms. Whatever it is. Reading “Dune” was quite dense and I think for people who are immersed into the world of science fiction, they understand worlds and Catharism and this planet and that planet. It is just another picture, which, not to stupefy myself, I am intelligent enough to understand it, but there is a rhythm. I think it is me highlighting the fact that people who live and breathe science fiction, they get it at another level.”
“Dune,” the latest cinematic take on the Frank Herbert 1965 classic, now playing in theatres, is part one of the planned two-part series. “Dune” is big and beautiful, with plentiful action and a really charismatic performance from Jason Momoa as swordmaster Duncan Idaho. It is unquestionably well made, with thought provoking themes of exploitation of Indigenous peoples, environmentalism and colonialism.
“Bitter Harvest” is a wannabe historical epic set against the backdrop of Joseph Stalin’s genocidal policies against Ukraine in the 1930s. I say wannabe because despite the sweeping nature of the story this is more melodramatic war soap opera than “War and Peace.”
Set at the time of the Soviet famine of 1932–33, “Bitter Harvest” is the story of two lovers, Cossack grain farmer and artist Yuri ( Max Irons ) and Natalka ( Samantha Barks ). Childhood sweethearts, they are torn apart and will only see one another again if they can survive the Holodomor, a Soviet regime “extermination by famine” policy that claimed millions of Ukrainian lives. Jailed in a Soviet gulag, Yuri stages a daring escape so he can join the anti-Bolshevik resistance movement and find his way back to Natalka.
“Bitter Harvest” is the story of an underreported atrocity, a genocide that didn’t become widely known until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It’s an important slice of history but by the time an evil Russian is forcing Natalka to not only wash his feet, but then dry them with her hair, any hope for nuance has been thrown out the window. Trading in stereotypes of the most banal kind the movie tries but fails to bring us inside the horror of the situation.
From director Tim Burton comes “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children,” another story of outsiders trying to find place in the world where they belong. Or in this case a place in time.
Teen years are for making friends and having fun but for Jake Portman (Asa Butterfield) they are a hardship. He’s the weird kid in class, friendless except for his grandfather Abraham (Terence Stamp) who keeps the boy entertained with wild stories about a life spent travelling the world and the Home for Peculiar Children where he was raised. He grew up side-by-side with a boy made of bees, a teacher who could turn into a bird, and a balloon girl, lighter than air who had to wear lead shoes so as not to float away.
When his Abe is attacked Jake arrives in time to catch his last, strange words. “I know you think I’m crazy but the bird will explain everything,” he says before urging the youngster to venture off to find out who, what, he really is. “I should have told you years ago. I thought I could protect you.”
Thus begins Jake’s adventure, a journey that leads him to a small island where Miss Alma LeFay Perigrine (Eva Green) a.k.a. The Bird Lady, attends to her brood of peculiar child. She has created a time loop, reset every day, to keep her peculiar safe and protect them from growing old. Every day is September 3, 1943 all day. An attack by Hollows (Samuel L. Jackson and others), evil creatures who steal the eyeballs of peculiar children, upsets Perigrine’s orderly time loop and gives Jake a chance to learn why he was sent to the island.
The first hour of “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children” is pure Tim Burton. He creates a fanciful world—imagine quirkier “X-Men”—with all his trademarks—mid-century kitsch, topiary sculptures, weird creatures and characters straight out of the outer regions of the imagination—and a mythology all its own. World building is a fantasy director’s strongest asset, and Burton paints a pretty picture, it’s just too bad he gets bogged down in the story in the second half.
The mushy second half erases the charm of the first sixty minutes as fanciful dreaminess and unique stop motion effects give way to CGI overload. The film’s long climax seems to go on forever—as though the audience is in one of Miss. Perigrine’s endless time loops—in an orgy of digital trickery that betrays the feel of the piece. An army of skeletons is a cool homage to Ray Harryhausen and setting its macabre sequence to weird amusement park dance music is a nice Burton touch, but it pales by comparison to the smaller, more intimate touches that give the movie much of its personality.
“Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children” has some beautiful images—like Emma Bloom (Ella Purnell), tethered to Jake like a balloon as he walks and she floats through an amusement park—but like many of Burton’s recent films the story feels like an afterthought.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Visionary Tim Burton values his time alone.
One writer called the director of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Beetle Juice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands and this weekend’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, “the most widely embraced loner in contemporary cinema.”
“I always try to at least spend time, as much as I can everyday, staring out into space; staring out a window,” the director says. “I find that sometimes you get the most ideas and the most feelings when you’re not involved in things you have to do everyday; especially these days when technology is such that you can be reached any time. I try and avoid that.”
Unsurprisingly as a filmmaker the characters he champions tend to echo his sensibility. From warped Mad Hatter in his Alice in Wonderland to the grieving child in Frankenweenie who reanimated a dog’s corpse, Burton’s heroes are often misfits and outsiders.
From his debut, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Burton has showcased people on the fringes of society. “You don’t wanna get mixed up with a guy like me,” says man-child Pee-Wee (Paul Reubens), “I’m a loner. A rebel.” Loosely based Vittorio De Sica’s classic film The Bicycle Thief, Burton’s story sees Pee-Wee on a mission to retrieve his stolen fire engine-red customized 1940s Schwinn. David Letterman was a fan, describing the anti-social character as having, “the external structure of a bratty little precocious kid, but you know it’s being controlled by the incubus, the manifestation of evil itself.”
In his next film Burton breathed life into Betelgeuse‘s rancid lungs. In the haunted-house comedy Beetlejuice Michael Keaton plays a “bio-exorcist” with crazy hair, giant teeth and an attitude, hired by two ghosts to scare away the insufferable new owners of their old house.
“I think Beetlejuice shows the complete positive side of being misperceived and being categorized as something different,” Burton says. “He can do whatever he wants! He’s horrible and everybody knows it, so he’s a complete fantasy of all of that.”
Burton’s two greatest misfits, his most intrepid folks on the outside looking in, are the off-kilter Eds—Wood and Scissorhands.
Edward Scissorhands is the strange-but-sweet story of a man with scissors for hands. The first collaboration of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, the movie is a funny, romantic and moving fantasy was inspired by a sketch Burton created as a teenager. “One look at that drawing was all I needed to understand what Edward was about,” says Depp. “I felt very tortured as a teenager,” says Burton. “That’s where Edward Scissorhands came from. I was probably clinically depressed and didn’t know it.”
Ed Wood, played by Depp in the film of the same name, is the story of one of Hollywood’s great outcasts. Wood wrote, produced and directed low-budget anti-classics like Plan 9 from Outer Space and Glen or Glenda. Burton says he was a fan of Wood’s films and after reading some of the director’s letters was touched by how Wood, “wrote about his films as if he was making Citizen Kane, you know, whereas other people perceived them as, like, the worst movies ever.”
Burton links his best-known creations, labelling them as “semi-antisocial, [having] difficulty communicating or relating, slightly out of touch,” and adds, “I feel very close to those characters. I really do. I feel like they are mutated children.”
Occasionally there is one thing that makes it worth a trip to the movies.
For me “The Art of the Steal” has a few things to recommend it but the thing that would make me reach into my wallet and pay for a second viewing is something that has nothing to do with the twisty-turny plot or the presence of Terence Stamp, one of my favorite actors.
It’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but I’d sprung for a ticket just to see Kurt Russell reprise his impersonation of Elvis Presley. Wearing a Vegas era jumpsuit, he mimics one of the King’s famous dance / karate movies he perfected for the 1979 television movie Elvis. It ups the general cool level of the movie and reaffirms my belief that everything is 10% better with Elvis in it.
In this heist flick Crunch and Nicky Calhoun (Russell and Matt Dillon) are brothers and art thieves, who haven’t worked together since Nicky snitched on Crunch and sent him to prison.
Years later they team up to steal The Gospel According to James, one of the world’s oldest and rarest books, but will the job lead to more double-crossing? Or a taste of revenge?
Along for the ride is Crunch’s apprentice (Jay Baruchel) and a variety of law-and-order types, including a former-art-thief-turned-FBI-informant (Terence Stamp) and an FBI fumbler played by “The Daily Show’s” Jason Jones.
The mechanics of the heist aspect don’t entirely add up—what border crossing storage unit doesn’t have closed circuit cameras?—and the twists threaten to overshadow the whole thing but the chemistry of the cast goes a long way toward smoothing over any plot rough spots.
It simply works better as a comedy than a heist film. Dillon and Stamp are in good form, Russell can cut through this material like a hot knife through butter, but it is Baruchel who shines in a supporting role. He provides the film’s funniest moment although it’s one that may make it harder for him to cross the border in future.
“The Art of the Steal” is an entertaining movie that mixes laughs with intrigue, crime with revenge in an offbeat heist flick.
“The Adjustment Bureau,” a new film starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as star crossed lovers, is a hard film to categorize. It’s a sci fi movie, with some action, romance and even a bit of metaphysical drama about two people who run afoul of The Adjustment Bureau, a shadowy group of men whose job it is to tweak or adjust people’s lives to make sure the overall plan for their life stays on track.
“The Adjustment Bureau’s” story exists at the intersection of chance and fate, exploring the nature of destiny and the role that free will plays in people’s lives. Key concepts imported the from Phillip K. Dick short story that forms the backbone of the movie include questions about humanity’s ability to truly do the right thing for themselves and the planet and whether or not we have free will or simply the appearance of free will.
Heady stuff. But like the best sci fi it’s not simply about the ideas, it puts a human face on its theories. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are David and Elsie. He’s a charismatic but impulsive politician whose frat boy behaviour just cost him an election. She’s an up-and-coming ballerina with a wild side. It’s love at first sight for both of them, but somehow, for years, they are kept apart. When they have a second chance meeting David is determined not to let her go, but the mysterious men from the Adjustment Bureau are just as determined to keep them apart. Will David be able to accept his predestined path and let her go, or will he try and create his own free will?
Much of the success of “The Adjustment Bureau” is due to its cast. Damon and Blunt have great chemistry and are completely believable as a couple. The sparks that fly off the pair as they meet for the second time on a New York City bus light up the screen and provide a very human edge to a weird but quite wonderful story. Without that the idea of a group of fedora-wearing men who control every aspect of humanity’s interactions would feel overreaching, but put a human face—well, two faces as appealing as Damon and Blunt’s—on it and you get a story that transcends genre.
Add to that some situational humor, some interesting supporting actors like John “Mad Men” Slattery, Anthony Mackie and Zod… er, I mean Terence Stamp in full-on metaphysical mode and you have a strange, but strangely appealing look at humanity
